A splice on a fiber is larger in size than the fiber. It is mounted in a housing of a support, with the support also receiving splices on other fibers of the cable in other individual housings. The support serves to hold the various fiber splices and to reconstitute the functional and mechanical structure of the cable locally. The resulting assembly is mounted in a watertight box or "splice" box for protective purposes.
It is common practice for the support to be cylindrical and to have longitudinal grooves in its periphery. The housings provided on the support are longer and wider than the splices. This is because it is very difficult to predict the exact size of a splice, with the dimensions of different splices being slightly different from one another. This means that splices are free to move longitudinally and transversely in their housings.
Any such movement of a splice in its housing is highly damaging to the quality of the splice.
An object of the present invention is to avoid these problems by ensuring that a fiber splice is held in its support housing in a manner which is simple and particularly effective.